This week marks the beginning of the third year of AIMeM Divrei Torah. Thank you for your continued support and may we share many more words of Torah together for many years to come!
In this week’s parshah, Parshas Eikev,
Moshe continues his final address to Bnei Yisrael. With each parshah in this
Sefer we see Moshe focusing on a different idea for Bnei Yisrael to work on.
This week is about accepting the yoke of Mitzvos and performing them first
through fear, but eventually through love and devotion. We see this idea clearly
in the parshah of וְהָיָה אִם שָׁמֹעַ,
the second section of the Shema, which is found in this week’s parshah. The
entire paragraph says how all success and failures for Bnei Yisrael are results
of them keeping or not keeping the mitzvos.
The pasuk at the end
of this paragraph says, “לְמַעַן יִרְבּוּ יְמֵיכֶם וִימֵי
בְנֵיכֶם עַל הָאֲדָמָה אֲשֶׁר נִשְׁבַּע יְהוָה לַאֲבֹתֵיכֶם”
“In order that your days may increase and the days of your children, on the
land which Hashem swore to your forefathers” (Devarim 11:21). The Gemarah in
Brachos (8a) tells a story that the Rabbis came and told Rebbi Yochanan (who
lived in Eretz Yisrael) that there were elderly people living outside of Eretz Yisrael.
This was extremely perplexing to him since this pasuk implies that only in the
land which Hashem promised us, Eretz Yisrael, will there be elders. But outside
of Eretz Yisrael? Impossible! However, once they told him that these elders
arrive early and leave late to Shul, the Gemarah says that he understood.
Says the Kli Yakar, this
Gemarah does not make sense. The pasuk is quite clear, only in Eretz Yisrael
will people live to advanced ages, so why would it matter how long they stayed
in Shul, they were still not in Eretz Yisrael?
He answers by bringing
another Gemarah in Maseches Megillah (29a) which says that in the times of
Mashiach, every Synagogue and Study Hall outside of Eretz Yisrael will be transferred
to Eretz Yisrael. As a result of this, the ground where every Shul currently
stands is considered the ground of Eretz Yisrael. The same way the ground
beneath an embassy belongs to that country even though the country may actually
be thousands of miles away, so too the embassies of Hashem, the Shuls and Batei
Medrash, are also considered the ground of the one place where Hashem continuously
watches and rests his Shechinah, Eretz Yisrael. Therefore, the people who spend
extra timetime in Shul can be included in the brachah of this pasuk and can
grow old even outside of Eretz Yisrael.
For those of us not
living in Eretz Yisrael, this is a tremendous idea. But even for those of us
living in Eretz Yisrael, we can still take a lot from this. For us, we have
luck upon luck. Not only do we live in the kedushah of Eretz Yisrael, but we
also can daven in Shuls and learn in Batei Medrash that are in Eretz Yisrael
proper, not just embassies in foreign countries.
Shabbat Shalom!
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